Let's make a Hobbit of it

Like a lot of people of my vintage, I read The Lord of the Rings when I was at university in the Seventies. There was a girlfriend in Liverpool, another in Bristol, and the trains were no more reliable then than now so that there was the everpresent possibilty of them bumping into each other on the platform. Matters were complicated even further by the ongoing debate about the relative merits of Red Leb, Pakistani Black or straight Moroccan. In the midst of this emotional and ethical turmoil, I read JRR Tolkien's fat book. The last few pages were devoured on the coach home to London, and I vividly recall the eerie combination of that cloudless afternoon and the tears that would not stop.

The point about this story is that it was an enjoyable tome, perfect for its time, but certainly no more than that. I would place it somewhere in between On The Road, The Naked Lunch and Catcher in the Rye - all of them rites of passage that no adult would ever return to. Now, however, the stakes have been upped with regard to the donnish fellow's page-turner. The fact that the New Zealander Peter Jackson has had the temerity to make a film about the adventures of Frodo, Gandalf, Gollum, and the rest of the frisky folk reenacting the fall of Ratners, has caused a certain amount of outrage. Children of Tolkien are distancing themselves from this celluloid opus, claiming that the book should never have been turned into a film.

This is an old argument, which has been applied to several works of perceived literary merit, from Proust to Joyce. The joy of a well-written book is that it unlocks the imagination of the reader, whereas the vulgar fellows who make films have nothing in their tiny minds other than to make us as dumb as them. This argument does not apply in the case of The Lord of The Rings.

It is not a particularly well-written book, and it leans heavily on the Arthurian legends for its power. The idea that it has achieved the sacrosanct status of a secular Bible is ludicrous. The Lord of The Rings actually cries out to be made into a film, and the trailer for it that I saw recently was very encouraging. It may be the best thing seen on the screen since Zulu, and just because the old fart who wrote it ill-advisedly flogged the film rights for £10,000, doesn't turn the book into a masterpiece. Just ask Ms Rowling.

Unblocking Bennett

There were many many sad news incidents over the weekend, but the worst was the news that Alan Bennett is suffering from writer's block. I don't know about you, but I pace the living room waiting for the latest instalment from this perkiest of all our wordsmiths. He once told a joke about mini-skirts and its intimate connection with the decline of the textile industry in the North of England - where, apparently he comes from - and I've been waiting for the punch line ever since. And this was some time ago. Now the poor fellow is stretched out on a chaise-longue, somewhere in the Camden area, unable to put pen to paper because his thoughts, and these are his words that I'm using, are too bleak to be thrust into the maw of the public. OK, the maw bit was mine. I am not here to be negative. Alan Bennett must be urged to rise from the couch upon which he is doing a very good impression of Thomas Chatterton. Alan, I am now speaking to you directly. There is a story in the paper which alleges that Polynesian seafarers navigate by means of immersing their testicles in water. Run with it, baby.

Hail the Hammers

I am not in the habit of writing about football, but I must make mention of a result that occurred on Saturday. Manchester United were beaten at home by the team that I support, West Ham United. Football, in case you hadn't noticed, has gone right down the tubes of late. The fact that Des Lynam's new highlights programme has been relegated to three in the morning comes as no surprise at all. It would be inaccurate ever to have described football as having a soul, but whatever muscle that once propelled the beautiful game has long since atrophied. These days, footballers are best known for protracted and fiercely greedy contract negotiations, and a tragic propensity for confusing boilers with air-conditioning units.

West Ham United is not a club of this ilk. We have had our share of coke snorters (Hi, Frank!) and people who find it impossible to go on holiday without making a video of their sexual exploits (Hi, different Frank!), but West Ham have not turned themselves into a monstrous commercial juggernaut. The fact is that they have had three managers since the Crimean War, and are not able to snuffle in the international player trough. When West Ham need a new player, they look for someone facing a firing squad up against a wall in eastern Europe, and buy him for a knock-down price. Manchester United, on the other hand, is a boutique club. The most expensive players are snapped up - willy-nilly - most of them fully leather-accessorised. Then West Ham turn up, sponsored by a boot-manufacturing company, and beat them. This is democracy, and this is what football is all about. At the end of the day. If the parrot is well enough to speak.